The Internet Effects on Society

Commentaries on the internet's effect on society tend to fall into utopian and dystopian extremes. Using examples, critically discuss these perspectives and offered a considered synthesis between them.

With stats revealing that over 2.8 billion people now use the internet worldwide(www.statsworld.com/stats) the question of whether the internet is a dystopian or a utopian device is a pertinent one. The question should be explored more and then each side of the argument taken a look at methodically and sensibly.

Utopian, meaning a perfect or near perfect ideal with dystopian meaning the exact opposite characterized by human misery, oppression and misery. These are two extreme opposites and most arguments on the internet's effect tend to fall into one of these extreme camps. There are many reasons for the divisions in opinion concerning the internet.

Utopia

The main factors to consider over these polarized extremes are age and how the internet effects youth and in particular the neurological effect the internet has on the brain and the how it may either advance our critical thinking or slow it down.

It would be fair to say that the majority of the arguments of the internet as a dystopian tool would be of an older generation. One that was not born or did not grow up with the internet. Ergo the younger generation are more likely to see the internet as a utopian device. According to Riegel’s Irish Independent article an example of the younger generation's higher comfort with technology  is that 80% of under 21's in Ireland having owned or used a smartphone or the statistic that the average Irish teenager spends the equivalent of 38 days a year online. Contrast that to the fact one in five Irish people over the age of 40 have never been on the internet. This shows the gap is still sizable. This really goes to show how younger people have really embraced the internet and see it as a utopian device rather than a dystopian one. To the youth of today the internet is seen as a solid, immoveable object that has always been there and always will be. Google is the ever reliable where once their parent's knowledge would have been enough. (Riegel, 2013)

Robert McChesney points out Clay Shirky's argument. That the youth of today will be born into the assumption that "media includes the possibilities of consuming, producing, and sharing side by side, and that those possibilities are open to everyone" and that this "previously unimaginable collaboration will radically transform and improve our lives". This is a really interesting point and one that has become more and more relevant. As the internet expands the size of the world decreases and the boundaries and limitations are taken away. The youth of today are born into a world where the barriers of race, gender and nationality are slowly being dismantled. The internet has a massive role to play in that. It's almost an argument that nationalism has been broken down and soon we will be living in one whole country interconnected by the internet. This is a point that Evgeny Morozov argues strongly against and will be talked about later ( McChesney, 2013)

Don Tapscott mentions in 'Grown up Digital' (2009) “Young people have a natural affinity for technology that seems uncanny. They instinctively turn first to the Net to communicate, understand, learn, find and do many things”. This indicates the reliance of youth today on the internet. It is the first port of call for information and is a vast network of readily accessible archives. A reliance on something does not however make it a negative influence however. Tapscott goes on to expand in that he sees the general vast and endless amount of content on the internet as only a positive. He makes the argument that while the preconception may be that because young people spend so much time staring at a screen “young people forfeit the ability to think deeply or creatively”. He dispels this theory and argues that playing video games and spending hours hunting for information improves youngsters brain capacity. He goes on to say “Because the Internet gives young people a world of information at their fingertips, they have to struggle to understand and synthesize”.  He makes the argument that younger brains have to work harder than their older contemporaries with the brain being tested more and to a fuller extent by doing online reading rather than exclusively literature claiming the internet is “great intellectual exercise” and puts forward the argument that test scores prove that this is in no way the dumbest generation but in fact quite the opposite with IQ points going up three points a decade since World War 2. (Tapscott, 2009)

Bruce Friedman, a pathologist on the faculty at the University of Michigan, claims he has now almost lost the ability to read long web articles and believes his thinking has taken on a ‘staccato’ quality. One of quickly scanning articles for tit-bits of information rather than absorbing long pieces of pointless information. His new found ability to quickly scan an article comes from his blog he says. Despite this he has “never felt more creative”.  Phillip Davis concurs and although agrees that the internet has made him a less patient reader but smarter due to more connections to documents, artifacts and people. While the internet may have reduced attention spans it is also undeniable from this evidence that our overall knowledge has been expanded. While it may be argued that people have more refined memories and less information retained these days it is easy to counter argue, why would one need to remember everything and anything if it can so easily be stored online or in a hard drive. (Carr, 2010)

Dystopia

The internet draws you in unlike any other medium has done before. There are endless links to click on Facebook and billions more videos to watch on Youtube. The internet captures us and it can be hours before we are released again. Our minds our only half switched on when we are browsing the web argues Nicholas Carr. He further argues a more drastic point, that the internet is changing and re-shaping our brains. He describes the oblivion of the mind when using the web . We are often oblivious to everything else going on around us and Carr compounds his point by saying "The net seizes our attention span only to shatter it. Carr clearly believes the internet has only served to quash the attention span of the young and dumb down the human race as a whole.  (Carr, 2010)

The worry that the content of the internet will warp minds, especially young and impressionable ones, is a widespread and justified one. In a recent paper written by Mary Anne Layden, Director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, uses statistics to convey the correlation between pornographic images and violence against women. She found that the likelihood of raping a woman was correlated with the use of all types of pornography, including soft-core (Russell, 1993). Layden also references to pornography as "the new crack-cocaine". While tis may be an extreme example it has elements of truth. The addiction to pornography is worrying and the statistics listed above are not only worrying but deeply shocking. The instant access to any genre of pornography,legal or otherwise, and the laid back attitude towards it help create definite elements of dystopia. (Layden, 2012)